Here are some photos of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez last week, as they walked into Jimmy Kimmel’s studio together. That was the interview where Ben looked high as hell as he tried to clean up his Howard Stern mess. His Stern mess was where he talked about how he was “trapped” in his marriage to Jennifer Garner and how he would still be drinking if he was married to her. Reportedly, J.Lo was mad at Ben for the “reckless” and “cavalier” Stern interview. That’s what sources claimed. But J.Lo took a moment to deny that story directly to People Mag:
Jennifer Lopez has Ben Affleck’s back. Despite media reports that Lopez took offense at Affleck’s comments related to his ex-wife, Jennifer Garner, during a recent interview with Howard Stern, the On My Way singer says the rumors are utterly off-base.
“This story is simply not true,” Lopez tells PEOPLE exclusively. “It is not how I feel.”
She adds of Affleck, with whom she rekindled a romantic relationship earlier this year, “I couldn’t have more respect for Ben as a father, a co-parent, and a person.”
Lopez, for one, is fully supportive of Affleck and feels that any negative characterizations — both of him and of the rumors of her being angry at him for the Stern interview — are off the mark. A source close to the couple agrees, and says the pair is “in a really great space and really happy.”
Basically, ever since Ben and J.Lo got back together, we’ve all been waiting with bated breath to see what Ben would do to f–k it all up. What we forgot, however, is that J.Lo has an exceptionally high tolerance for bullsh-t. She will stick with a dude even when the red flags are flying. So… while I’m sort of disappointed in J.Lo, this is completely in character for her. She believes this time will be different. I think this will end in sorrow yet again, and when it does, Ben is going to bitch about her to Howard Stern.
PS… Ben and J.Lo were out separately yesterday in LA, both doing some Christmas shopping. Stars, they’re just like us! They do their Christmas shopping on the weekend before Christmas too. J.Lo was at Saks with her sister, while Ben took his kids and J.Lo’s kids shopping with his mom. Emme and Seraphina were holding hands like besties, which is adorable.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
What does this mean,she directly called People herself?
it sounds like she has them on speed dial.
Oh wow, how cute are those kids? I’d like to think they are okay, not traumatized by the gigantic spotlight on their parents.
JLo sure does have a knack for ignoring red flags. I still can’t believe she got together with A Rod, let alone stayed with him for so long. Yuck.
The kids are adorable, I love their trendy teen outfits. I like JLo’s green two piece too. Ben…well, I’ve never understood that attraction.
He still love-bombs her, probably tells her that she’s different than his exes (even though she’s one of them).
She will eventually fall into the same category (again) and Ben will turn on her and blame her for what goes wrong in his life.
^^Absolutely true^^
Every time I want to be mad at JLo I see her kids and how they look like KIDS and I soften a bit.
That’s dumb.
Thanks, Winnie. Merry Christmas!
Wow…Ebeneezer Scrooge is here!
No, it’s not a valid reason to forgive or ignore JLo as an enabler. No matter what men do to her she stays. Unless, imo, she has a jump off.
She’s a good mom, for sure.
And, I briefly wondered what it’s like for her kids being besties with Ben’s kids this Christmas, after being besties with ARod’s kids last Christmas, and I don’t think it matters. Dating openly and bringing your kids along each step of the way can work if you communicate with your kids and they’re securely attached to you and their dad (Marc Anthony). Plus, people rarely criticize men for bringing a new partners around kids “too soon.”
I’m not the biggest JLo fan (her work, her style, her branding doesn’t do it for me) but I respect how hard she works and how she’s redefining aging, motherhood, and dating.
I sometimes think of what an amazing network of friends her kids must have! Sure, their parents are no longer together, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still talk.
I was in 2 relationships that lasted for a couple of years each after a divorce with partners who had kids (my children never met anyone who was just a few dates) before Mr. R and I connected. The one thing that I appreciate about social media is how easy it was for us to connect with those kids on fb and insta once we were all on. It’ so nice to see them growing up, becoming parents, and how they are doing.
I don’t think its dumb at all.
Already having to defend his mouthing off too much. Gee …
I listened to the interview – it’s super long. But that part was such a small snippet and overall, he was very interesting and introspective throughout. Like most Stern interviews, you walk away with a very different perspective on the subject afterward.
Yes. I too listened to the entire interview which covered a lot of ground and only briefly touch on the pain of divorce. I have also noticed the ad space jump up more on this blog as it dumps on a man trying to stay sober and change his life. Every alcoholic stays sober one day at a time. And it’s not exactly honorable to stand on the sidelines booing.
Ben does not sound sober. At all.
Of course she’s not mad about his interview. He didn’t say anything bad about JLo, he said something cruel about another woman. I believe she thinks this makes her look good. Ben would still be drinking if he was with Jen G but since he’s with Jen L, he’s sober. See how good she is for him? That’s how I take her response with what little I know about her.
He will continue to say stupid things until he blows this relationship up too. I wish JLo would find a man who would treat her well.
Exactly. It also pushes the narrative that he was pining for her the whole time, which I’m sure she loves.
This. She still believes men when they tell her they failed because their x wasn’t fabulous like her and she’s special. By now she should have figure out to hop on team women, but she’s not that type.
Even though I don’t dig women who take pleasure in their man being cruel to their ex with whom they have kids, I do still respect her hustle and what she as a brand is doing for women who age. Also think she’s gorgeous, but way too high on her own supply. Ben is now and has always been a horrible choice for a partner, especially if you have kids.
I think that’s a bit of an unfair way to look at this. When Ben was with Jen G, he talked shit about J Lo, too. It’s a pattern with Ben and we shouldn’t use his behaviour to criticise the women in his life. He is solely responsible for what he said.
I think this is just an example of how J Lo has a high tolerance for BS. He has done similar to her and she has taken him back. Now when she is ready to move on, she moves quickly, but
before that, she puts up with so much for a relationship. She should have broken up with Caspar and ARod much, much earlier than she actually did.
The adoration in her eyes is staggering. And of course, he loves it, until he doesn’t. Then, as they say, out goes the light.
She isn’t mad for the same reason that Jennifer Garner isn’t mad. His comments were taken out of context. Lainey gossip explained it all really well because she listened to the entire interview. He was talking about being trapped in terms of feeling like he would screw his kids up if he left, but also screw them up if he stayed and he wasn’t sure which was worse. That’s a dilemma any parent might have about the situation. He’s a jerk most of the time. It makes sense that people jumped to the conclusion that this was just him being a jerk, but he wasn’t actually being a jerk this time.
This.
This. I haven’t listened yet but the interview is apparently over 2 hours long. The soundbite that everyone is freaking out about was a tiny part and the context is what you describe. I know Ben has been an idiot. But it’s good practice to take a beat, dig a little deeper and get the full context before rushing to judgement.
Also…I love both Emme’s and Seraphina’s individual style!
I also listened to the entire HS interview. I am not a Ben Stan and have not read LG’s take. However I absolutely believe the quotes were taken out of context because I bothered to listen to the whole thing. He was not blaming his wife/kids. He was explaining self-medication because he was terrified to give up on the marriage and lose everything. Therefore he went on to consume himself with alcohol to dull the fear. That being said, I also agree he did not sound 100% in either interview, but was he also congested? Sounds like it in HS interview.
I highly recommend that people read Lainey’s take. It’s very balanced and carefully deconstructs his intent. He may not have expressed his feelings perfectly well but having been through a divorce which I initiated, even though we didn’t have kids the guilt I felt for leaving was palpable. I know exactly how he felt.
what does she see in him, and why is everyone so into this relationship, I’m no JLo fan but personally I’d be more excited for her if she leaned into being single and fabulous at this point in her life…esp given the guys she picks…
Lainey Gossip has a long, interesting take on the Stern interview. It made me change my attitude about it and think the comments were taken out of context.
Lainey is obsessed with him lol. She’s very biased.
remember Lainey is a Ben Stan and if you’re a Ben stan I’m sure you would grab onto it as see he talked about other interesting things. Because she doesn’t address the self serving blaming aspect of what he said about JG snd his kids which was verbatim quotes. No of course not. She talks about how he’s still mad about his director’s snub (he and JLo probably grouse about snubs every night) he’s still insecure about Hollywood, and brought up something I forgot about.In 2005 or so he was paid not to do Ghosts of girlfriends past which he had a pay or play clause.Then JG took a role in it much later which I thought was odd but maybe he wanted to get as much money from the producers as possible.
@Lena, Ghosts of girlfriends past was Garner’s project and she backed out because of JLo’s involvement. Ben had no involvement whatsoever. I knew you are sympathetic to Garner, but still one should really strive for neutrality.
At least Lainey got to listen to the whole interview, instead of tabloids lifting words out of the whole context. We’ve all been taught on how to read and how not to take sentences/ words out of the context in schools. And yet here we are, I see quite a few comments underpinning the one word he said and even had the audacity to justify such approach. If I were the English teacher of these comments, I would have been rather disappointed. They were really illiterate.
Lainey is ride or die for Ben. She’ll always find a way to defend him.
I always read Lainey too but she is super biased. Bottom line is, he said what he said, even if there was a bigger conversation outside of the big quotes.
Didn’t your English teacher teach you on how not to take words out of a context when you were in school and doing reading comprehension? Is this how you justify laying into someone? Is this how you do your daily job or you don’t know how to read at all?
Agreed, @Shawna.
To everyone saying LG is biased: all gossip bloggers have their biases, their favorites. I actually find Lainey’s take very informed. Not sure why people are so mad at an interview they haven’t even listened to. Context is always so important.
@Green Desert – 💯. I’m not a Ben fan but it’s completely ridiculous for people to say that context doesn’t matter…
It’s not even just Lainey most people who actually took the time to listen to the 2 hours interview are saying that it was taken out of context and I agree.
Agree @Shawna. I commented above that Lainey wrote a thoughtful piece on Ben’s discussion with Stern. IMHO, he felt trapped by his feelings and became guilt-ridden, not trapped by Jen G., so he drank to blot out those feelings. Those of us who have been through a painful divorce, especially if we initiated it, can relate.
” The sun is still shining on her.”
i played the video from one of the You-tube videos of the interview of him with Howard Stern. My husband just heard him( he was not watching it) He could not believe how bad Ben sounded & talked. He said to me Ben has teenagers & a younger child & that is how he talks with all those f- bombs. My husband also said to me that Ben is definitely on something. Ben may be intelligent but talking like that makes him sound incredibly immature & entitled! it may have been cute or funny when he was in his 20s, but the man is almost 50 years old!!! Grow up!
JL is too lovesick too see how immature Ben is.
i never realized it before but it the WOMEN that make Ben look good…he cannot look good on his own!
Ben has always dropped f-bombs like that. Always lol… So that is nothing new. As for talking like that around his kids, I highly doubt he drops f-bombs around his kids all the time. My dad is like that. When my nieces and nephews aren’t around he drops f-bombs constantly, but when he’s babysitting them all weekend and he switches it to “better language.”
And Ben is totally on Xanax or some other type of Benzo. Alcoholism is rough when your sober and maybe he takes them for anxiety. I know I have in the past and I’ve been sober for 15 years. The problem with taking some form of benzos is he’s just switching to another drug to cope. He really needs to do the work. He’s not currently. He sounds like my step-sister who takes Benzos all the time.
He actually talked about it on the podcast, so it’s not like he’s hiding the fact that he’s under medication. I think it would be better for him to stop too, because pills are definitely working as a clutch and it’s a difficult balance to navigate for an addict. He also talked about someone he knew who killed himself when his sober coach told him to stop the pills. Sobriety is just a delicate subject.
I liked Lainey’s write up of the rest of the Stern interview and how revelatory it was about fragility in Hollywood etc. I honestly think the Garner comments were blown out of proportion. He was maybe a bit inelegant with his articulation, but I didn’t take what he said to be BLAMING Jen Garner for his drinking. He was saying that they were both in an unhappy situation for the sake of their kids and that if he had persisted in that unhappy situation, he’d probably still be drinking. I think that’s true, and I also don’t think it’s her fault or that he was saying it was her fault. I’m going to give him some grace on this one. Unfortunately, a lot of people turn to unhealthy habits to cope when their life doesn’t make them happy. It doesn’t have to be a case of placing blame. I think he knows his shit is on him, and I think he does respect Jen Garner. He might even love her, as the mother of his kids.
Love JLo’s outfit for Kimmel (Ben’s coat is nice too). I love coat season!
Jennifer Garner was unhappy in her marriage because she had three young children and a husband she loved who was a philandering alcoholic. Ben was unhappy in his marriage because he was a philandering alcoholic with a wife who wanted him to not be a philandering alcoholic. Sure it hurt his ego to think about leaving his marriage and “failing” but that wasn’t why he was on the couch passed out and everyone who has experience with alcoholism knows it. And for Ben to say so on Howard Stern is beyond the pale, I don’t care if it was part of a two hour or twenty hour or twenty minute conversation. He’s not misunderstood, he’s an ass who doesn’t own his shit, still.
@Twin falls 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I mean, sure. I wasn’t in their marriage and I don’t know them personally so I can’t really say it’s as black and white as that. He was definitely a shitty partner at times just given what we saw in public, but I don’t think he was putting that on her at all. It just didn’t read that way to me.
@ TWINS FALLS 👏👏👏👏👏👏 exactly
Side note, I see we are now deep into the ugliest 80s/90s pants possible. Only JLo can wear these (again!) and pull it off. Bad picker, fabulous dresser.
And a tucked-in bulky sweater to boot! (I kind of love it.)
Ha! I erased my additional comment about that bulky sweater! No way I could get away with that.
JLo and Ben deserve each other. I live for the day Jen Gardner sets his ass on fire but she won’t for the sake of the children she’s raising on her own since daddy dear is complete jerk. Bet she’s sick and tired trying to explain daddy’s fk-ups. JLo needs to stop depending on a man to make her happy. No man could satisfy her relentless need for attention from men. What hideous examples they set for their children. We can analyze that interview all day and it still won’t change how his kids feel about it. Which we don’t know but I’m guessing it’s not warm and fuzzy.
I’m pretty sure his kids are completely fine with the interview. They know their dad, I would guess a million times better than us. He was seen out with Violet and Sera yesterday, (and JL’s kids together). Violet even held onto him at one point. They didn’t seem upset at all. He was probably helping them pick out gifts for various family members or friends.
I don’t know if they were completely fine with it but he probably told them he didn’t mean to say it that way and they accepted his half truth (didn’t mean to get clapped back on it he means). After all this is the man who had it all over the internet he was screwing their nanny, and he has denied it vehemently remember? It is their father and they’ve seen his squirming out of any accountability their whole life. By the time kids are into their twenties and thirties if not earlier they wise up. And his putting his arm around Violet in front of paps reminds me of him kissing the girls’ heads at the ice cream parlor post sex harassment charges. Please.I hope he was helping them pick out a great present for Jennifer (Garner).
@Lena, how do you know it was half-truth? Who are you to pass the judgement? Yes, he probably shouldn’t on medication when he was on HS show, which made his articulation worse.
Garner takes the “long suffering partner and mom” act and makes bank with it. See all the seasons of her pap strolls. She has gotten countless work opportunities with connections made with her marriage and became a millionaire in her own right. It’s not like she hasn’t profited enormously and she sets up pap strolls to remind us of all the work she has had to do. I feel for all the parents battling addiction issues, not just the rich ones.
Who’s been doing the most cringe pap strolls? A mom at a farmer’s market with her kids buying fresh produce or her ex and his latest nubile squeeze hugging, kissing, grinning and doing performative PDA incessantly? Also, Jen G was a star in her own right and made her own money prior to Ben. The only thing she profited from was that her reputation stayed intact while Ben pissed his away banging the nanny, drunken bar hopping and being papped with Jen getting him food to sober him up.
Omg girl, get some backbone and stop running to the press. This is just embarrassing. We get it, you’ll stand by your man no matter what. If the world was being taken over from an alien invasion, these two dumbasses would still be running to the press to preserve their delicate reputations.
She is great but she should just stay out of all the stuff between Jen G and Ben. Not her circus and seems kind of weird to get involved. Just say “no comment”
Yes she should just stay out of it. Except this way she gets all the headlines. Multiple outlets picking this up today. She keeps herself front and center.
LG didn’t totally let Ben off the hook with her headline “BA Talks and Talks.” Anyone else think Ben should_just_stop_talking about his ex-wife? He should leave the past in the past and incrementally pivot to talking about the positives of his current relationship.
Meanwhile, anyone else think the JLo is mad/not mad scenario is strategic? It draws off the heat from the dumb-media repeating the same two sentences about BA yet nevertheless flags a warning about B’s behavior. Then denying the “pissed” statement is a tactical way of re-circulating it.
She’s wearing a “This is fine” facial expression.
Her outfit here is truly hideous! Those pants belong in a dumpster. She’s such a beautiful woman and her fashion choices don’t always reflect that.
Is anyone surprised by her blind, red flag loving, stand-by-her-toxic-man-take on this? I know I’m not. I used to really like her as an artist but she’s so full of herself and desperate to be loved that it screams pathetic.
Plus, she’s ripped off other singers and claimed their voice as her own and I just can’t respect that. Barf.
The song sampling/theft allegations have long been disputed and denounced by jarule and Ashanti themselves. As a singer who is given the music by a production company she sings it…any dispute about ownership of a song is resolved with the record label or producer. Jlo has never stolen any music cuz singers don’t own the music , the record label does. This fake rumor needs to stop.
It’s a not a rumour and I wasn’t talking about Ashanti or JaRule. JLo knows she’s she’s done, and so do many others in the industry. Nice try though!
Does she really think this makes her look good? Does she need the attention this much? Confused.
Probably to help him recover in his award campaign. She want upset and disputed the article hit piece that was written to make her partner look bad
The interview was really uncomfortable. He was claiming to be so happy and serene and sober but all I heard was manic anger.
Laineys take on the interview was an unbiased honest account of the interview. Ben’s comments were taken out of context, he is no different to millions of people battling their demons or unhappiness with alchohol or drugs, I had no idea he was taking anti depressants. His not as bad as people like to make him out to be especially the Jen Garner fans attacking him for every little thing because he is with Latina Jen instead of Saint Jen. It’s nice to see the kids getting on so well.
No. He’s an established dick, in spite of Lainey and his stans trying to clean up his sloppy comments. I’m supposed to forget him helping paper over his sexual predator brother assaulting women in his Oscar campaign? Taft us who Ben is. Women are disposable to him, and he’s “Cali Sober” only.
Ben was a lousy husband who drank and cheated, but I do think his comments were misinterpreted somewhat. It was a long interview. I didn’t get the sense he wasn’t blaming Jen Garner for his drinking. It’s more complicated than that.
JLo can pull off that outfit but man, WHY are those pants back in style? I think it’s fun for the youngsters but I don’t need Gen Z telling me to wear Mom jeans. They’re not going to make me look cool, they’re going to make me look like Mom, in a bad way.
Well that doesn’t look good on her either, she should definitely at least be disappointed her boyfriend acts like a fool two times in a row.